Why am I excited by this? I don't know. Barbs are still mediocre at best but I still want to play. I enjoy zbarb immensely for some reason.

So the plan is to get a nap in when I get home at 5:30 on Thursday evening, wake up at 7:45, make some coffee or tea, get caffeinated, and hit the ground running at 8 PM when season 11 starts! I tried out a new leveling method, using the massacre bonus in Halls of Agony level 3 and Fields of Misery. I'm able to reliably get to 70 in under 2.5 hours. Usually takes me 4-5! Pretty psyched about that.

Anyway, I'll be playing Barb! Unfortunately the massacre bonus leveling method only seems to really work solo.

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I didn't enjoy my crusader at all last season, just felt bland to play. Might try another wizard or demon hunter, they're pretty active and can be fun. Not going hard though, I don't care that much about it other than burning a few hours for the lulz.

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Wait, are you telling me that I just got my first character to 70 (almost done with the campaign, in act 5) for nothing? Ugh.

Seasonal characters are different than normals, you can still play that character and have fun etc. Seasonal characters have special challenges they can go through, though you will have to start from level 1 again (and it's much easier to level up) if you want to participate in the seasonal stuff.

Wait, are you telling me that I just got my first character to 70 (almost done with the campaign, in act 5) for nothing? Ugh.

Not for nothing! Once you finish the campaign, Adventure Mode unlocks (both for season and non season characters). Adventure mode is the real "meat" of Diablo 3. Bounties, Rifts, Greater Rifts, Leaderboards, and the eternal grind to find the perfect ancient legendaries. So IMO, finish up the campaign - that way you can start off leveling in adventure mode for season. For a beginner, just running rifts is probably the best way to level. You can hit 70 in 4-5 hours pretty easily just by running rifts. You can even join a public party and run with them - it's a lot of fun. When I had a dedicated group, we would always go hard for the first weekend, powering up to 70 and then completing the "Season Journey" together. There are lot's of cool rewards, and honestly, since you get a free level 70 class armor set (set items are legendary quality), you're probably best off playing this season.

Plus.. I don't know how to describe it, but seasons are just more fun. You're starting on an even playing field. Everyone starts at level 1 with no gear, no paragon levels, nothing. It gives everyone a chance to start over and experience the rush of getting to 70, racing to find the items needed to complete your builds, and doing the season journey challenges. Plus, once the season ends, everything - all of your gear, your seasonal characters, and your paragon levels, all transfer to your non season. I'd highly recommend it, especially if you are new.

Wait, are you telling me that I just got my first character to 70 (almost done with the campaign, in act 5) for nothing? Ugh.

For a beginner, just running rifts is probably the best way to level. You can hit 70 in 4-5 hours pretty easily just by running rifts.

You can even hit it in under an hour if you have some level 70 friends with decent gear to run you through. Your only goal at that point is to not die.

Guess I was thinking for season, with a fresh character. Don't be one of those guys that waits until 3 days after season starts then begs for a power level and gear leeching. Level up with everyone else during season start! It's much more fun.

I think I'm going to roll the Witch Doctor this time around, I hear good things about the Helltooth set and from what I experimented with it seems pretty legit once you the all the peices, eventually I want to try and squeeze out a LoN Spirit Barrage build. I might roll a necro but I'm pretty sure everyone and there grandmother will be rolling a necro this season. Thankfully there's a necro build for just about anything.

I think I'm going to roll the Witch Doctor this time around, I hear good things about the Helltooth set and from what I experimented with it seems pretty legit once you the all the peices, eventually I want to try and squeeze out a LoN Spirit Barrage build. I might roll a necro but I'm pretty sure everyone and there grandmother will be rolling a necro this season. Thankfully there's a necro build for just about anything.

I had the same thought about Necro. It's not really my favorite class anyway, and everyone is going to be playing it... honestly I didn't even buy the character add-on. That LoN SB build is going to be one of the top builds I think. Tough to gear, but that just means more grinding and more fun.

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Wait, are you telling me that I just got my first character to 70 (almost done with the campaign, in act 5) for nothing? Ugh.

For a beginner, just running rifts is probably the best way to level. You can hit 70 in 4-5 hours pretty easily just by running rifts.

You can even hit it in under an hour if you have some level 70 friends with decent gear to run you through. Your only goal at that point is to not die.

Guess I was thinking for season, with a fresh character. Don't be one of those guys that waits until 3 days after season starts then begs for a power level and gear leeching. Level up with everyone else during season start! It's much more fun.

Normally it's the opposite for me. Friends start on day one, and I've never been super into the game, so they beg me to join until I agree in exchange for them getting me to 70. No begging on my part. Then I get bored a week later.

Wait, are you telling me that I just got my first character to 70 (almost done with the campaign, in act 5) for nothing? Ugh.

For a beginner, just running rifts is probably the best way to level. You can hit 70 in 4-5 hours pretty easily just by running rifts.

You can even hit it in under an hour if you have some level 70 friends with decent gear to run you through. Your only goal at that point is to not die.

Guess I was thinking for season, with a fresh character. Don't be one of those guys that waits until 3 days after season starts then begs for a power level and gear leeching. Level up with everyone else during season start! It's much more fun.

Normally it's the opposite for me. Friends start on day one, and I've never been super into the game, so they beg me to join until I agree in exchange for them getting me to 70. No begging on my part. Then I get bored a week later.

LOL yeah I'm on the opposite end. Friend shows up a week in, asks for a PL, my first thought is "dude I'm busy running GR 100 speeds in a GG group", but I go PL them anyway, and then they're bored in like 3 days, and I could have been getting paragons.

For me.. games aren't fun unless they are challenging and I have to work to earn stuff. So getting a power level in a fresh season just completely kills it for me. Becomes 100% not fun. I'm weird though. In any case, whatever you prefer, carry on!

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Wait, are you telling me that I just got my first character to 70 (almost done with the campaign, in act 5) for nothing? Ugh.

For a beginner, just running rifts is probably the best way to level. You can hit 70 in 4-5 hours pretty easily just by running rifts.

You can even hit it in under an hour if you have some level 70 friends with decent gear to run you through. Your only goal at that point is to not die.

Guess I was thinking for season, with a fresh character. Don't be one of those guys that waits until 3 days after season starts then begs for a power level and gear leeching. Level up with everyone else during season start! It's much more fun.

Normally it's the opposite for me. Friends start on day one, and I've never been super into the game, so they beg me to join until I agree in exchange for them getting me to 70. No begging on my part. Then I get bored a week later.

LOL yeah I'm on the opposite end. Friend shows up a week in, asks for a PL, my first thought is "dude I'm busy running GR 100 speeds in a GG group", but I go PL them anyway, and then they're bored in like 3 days, and I could have been getting paragons.

For me.. games aren't fun unless they are challenging and I have to work to earn stuff. So getting a power level in a fresh season just completely kills it for me. Becomes 100% not fun. I'm weird though. In any case, whatever you prefer, carry on!

The 1-70 grind isn't the challenging part of the game though :P. I only get PLs if I have friends who are already leveled, or I'll give PLs to friends who feel like hopping on, otherwise I just solo play because I'm anti-social like that.

Wait, are you telling me that I just got my first character to 70 (almost done with the campaign, in act 5) for nothing? Ugh.

For a beginner, just running rifts is probably the best way to level. You can hit 70 in 4-5 hours pretty easily just by running rifts.

You can even hit it in under an hour if you have some level 70 friends with decent gear to run you through. Your only goal at that point is to not die.

Guess I was thinking for season, with a fresh character. Don't be one of those guys that waits until 3 days after season starts then begs for a power level and gear leeching. Level up with everyone else during season start! It's much more fun.

Normally it's the opposite for me. Friends start on day one, and I've never been super into the game, so they beg me to join until I agree in exchange for them getting me to 70. No begging on my part. Then I get bored a week later.

LOL yeah I'm on the opposite end. Friend shows up a week in, asks for a PL, my first thought is "dude I'm busy running GR 100 speeds in a GG group", but I go PL them anyway, and then they're bored in like 3 days, and I could have been getting paragons.

For me.. games aren't fun unless they are challenging and I have to work to earn stuff. So getting a power level in a fresh season just completely kills it for me. Becomes 100% not fun. I'm weird though. In any case, whatever you prefer, carry on!

The 1-70 grind isn't the challenging part of the game though :P. I only get PLs if I have friends who are already leveled, or I'll give PLs to friends who feel like hopping on, otherwise I just solo play because I'm anti-social like that.

Heh. With my friends it's "oh, after you PL me, can you let me leech gear while you run speed rifts for the next 8 hours so I can get caught up?". And then 3-4 days later they've lost interest and I see them playing Overwatch for the rest of the season lol.

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If I play this season I'll probably make lv 70 by the end of Sunday, then I'll be working and not get back to it till the next weekend. By the my 1 friend that plays will have spent the whole week getting awesome and I won't be able to play with them any more than I can outside of seasonal characters. Since them wanting me to play with them is the reason I do it, that's probably as far as I'll get, least I could get a barb to lv 70 though and have 1 of each maxed out. Think GR like 15 is the highest I've done. I sort of got tired of it before paragon levels were a thing. I enjoyed D2 a lot more and played it much longer.

I guess playing solo the whole time makes it easier for me. I think I grouped up once with someone.

I'll have to try it again.

I went through like 4 seasons before I finally joined a public game, man that was a great way to grind paragon, but it was also during the massive Lightning Hydra/Archon meta and it was crazy easy to zip around and nuke trash and elites. That was mainly for greater rifts though, regular rifts I usually did solo so I could take my time and pick up loot and Deaths Breaths, the few times I did public regular rifts there'd be one guy GR60 geared just speed running through the whole thing and it was a pain to keep track of where he killed elites and goblins.

Well since your character pool is probably pretty small you can just make a new one. When the season starts this Thursday you'll have the option when making a character to select Season Character, or you can select to Rebirth a level 70 character. If you Rebirth a lvl 70 all the equipment they had equipped get thrown in your mail and you have 30 days to collect them and put them in your stash. After the season is done your seasonal character keeps all they had on it but the stuff in your seasonal stash gets put in your mail and you got 30 days to collect. The Paragon experience you gather during the season gets added to your off season paragon levels, as you can guess you need more exp per paragon level as you paragon increases.

As for picking a class just go with what you want to play, JoeBob for example likes playing Barbarians, I normally pick between Monks, Crusaders and Demon Hunters but I've been branching out into the other classes to keep my interest up. This season I'll probably be going with Witch Doctor because I'm interested in the set you get for completing seasonal objectives. The sets this season are:

Barbarian – Wrath of the Wastes (Whirlwind = spin to win and best Barb Set atm)Crusader – Roland’s Legacy ( Flails flails and more flails, effective but not the best)Demon Hunter – Unhallowed Essence (Multishot or Grenades its AoE for Days)Monk – Raiment of a Thousand Storms (Best monk set when used with two piece monk weapon set)Necromancer – Bones of Rathma (Pet set, doable but not the best for necro atm)Witch Doctor – Helltooth Harness (One of the better ones but has fallen off, still effective and can use it to farm)Wizard – Tal Rasha’s Elements ( Half of the lightning archon build, easy to farm with)

In the end try what you want, if you've completed the Story mode on the non season you can start immediately in adventure mode on seasonal, there's tricks you can use make you leveling as swift as possible or hell just play like you normally do and level at your own pace. The season isn't just for trying to score leader board ranks, its to start the gear grind over with no saved items or gold, a fresh start to try out what you haven't done before or see how well you can test your luck and get better gear. Also seasonal character can only play with other seasonal characters so while the season is going so if you want to have a guy to do non seasonal stuff with you might want to just make a new character then the season starts.

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Seasons run in adventure mode, primarily you spend your time either grinding quests for materials or rifts to get better gear. You can complete season quests for a free 6 piece set of gear for 1 class, which changes each season. I would suggest looking up some builds online to see what other people are doing with stacking particular legendary pieces together to make the best possible set.